principle for the benefit of the State in which he resided the State of
Illinois. The alternate sections were to be given for the purpose of
constructing roads, and the reserved sections were to be enhanced in
value in consequence. When that bill came here for the action of this
House--it had been received, and was now before the Committee on Public
Lands--he desired much to see it passed as it was, if it could be put in
no more favorable form for the State of Illinois. When it should be
before this House, if any member from a section of the Union in which
these lands did not lie, whose interest might be less than that which he
felt, should propose a reduction of the price of the reserved sections to
$1.25, he should be much obliged; but he did not think it would be well
for those who came from the section of the Union in which the lands lay
to do so.--He wished it, then, to be understood that he did not join in
the warfare against the principle which had engaged the minds of some
members of Congress who were favorable to the improvements in the western
country. There was a good deal of force, he admitted, in what fell from
the chairman of the Committee on Territories. It might be that there was
no precise justice in raising the price of the reserved sections to $2.50
per acre. It might be proper that the price should be enhanced to some
extent, though not to double the usual price; but he should be glad to
have such an appropriation with the reserved sections at $2.50; he should
be better pleased to have the price of those sections at something less;
and he should be still better pleased to have them without any
enhancement at all.

There was one portion of the argument of the gentleman from Indiana, the
chairman of the Committee on Territories [Mr. Smith], which he wished to
take occasion to say that he did not view as unsound. He alluded to the
statement that the General Government was interested in these internal
improvements being made, inasmuch as they increased the value of the